(no subject)

* The Syrian government continues to bomb civilians in a number of cities. They halted the bombing of Duma during the inspection yesterday, they started back up as soon as they were gone.

* Sudan, despite South Sudan withdrawing from the disputed oil field is continuing to war on South Sudan. Up until recently Sudan has been the agrssor in the conflict, but this latest round seems to be South Sudan's fault.

* More on Republicans and the anti-woman agenda and attempts to lie about their records: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/

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* Zimmerman is out on bond. The Sanford city Commission refused the police chief's resignation despite last month's vote of no confidence and having asked him to step down. The severance for the resignation would cost less than the investigation and forcing him out. O.o

* The Pennsylvania primary later today is a lot less funny without santorum.

* I think Mr. Colbert has taken the best approach to the puffed up dog controversy in the presidential election: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/413073/april-23-2012/mitt-romney-s-picnic-gaffe

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* Hector decided I didn't need sleep today. He was wrong, but there was no convincing him. I did make it to the Doctor and to three out of four errands. (Forgot to get my meds, damnit) To my horror, my Doctor is resigning. She was kind and trans friendly and just generally a delight, but she has family stuff. I'm going back to the cranky, mood swingy Doctor who I know will prescribe my hormones, though she may be randomly nasty about it. Sigh. Her nurse is heartbroken of course, and I'm worried what will happen to his schedule. He has a wife and kids. Switching Doctor's means breaking in a new nurse and I like this one, damnit. Anyway, I took the cats out for 45 minutes today as the weather was brilliant, but was extra strict due to the rat situation. Don't worry, they did not make contact with any wildlife, alive or dead.

* I found black mold around my bedroom window today. Shit.

* I'm also nearly out of the merely disgusting cough syrup and moving onto the one so gross I can barely keep it down stuff. At least it actually is suppressing my cough, but I'd way much rather have the cough and antihistamines in pill form.

* Rm said this on tumblr recently: "To be critical in a review is, in the tradition I come from, an act of respect and love." That's my tradition too. It used to drive Skye nuts. It took a whole lot of communication and processing to get across that it's part of how i enjoy art, and a real compliment. It's how I got i trouble m last undergraduate year (along with Mitch, Xavier, and Jason V) because we were training to be historians and we thought that piinting out big flaws in the thesis before the twenty page paper got written was saving the other person a lot of time and effort and doing them the compliment of assuming they were grown ups able to handle criticism. It turned out that we were instead seen as "imposing patriarchal ideas of evidence and logic and therefore male chauvinist pigs." I still stand by my points. Here are the ones I got in the most trouble for: 1. You can call spears and swords phallic objects, but you can't call them all swords. 2. Two fictional retellings based on Lysistrata do not prove anything one way or another about the real life status of ordinary women in the Middle Ages. 3. The thesis that "Christianity is the only reason for a ransom system as it's an exclusively Christian idea as pagans wouldn't be so merciful" is pretty well disproved by the existence of the Iliad. I was also of the opinion that feminism is and should be about things like equal pay, equal status under the law, and equal rights to make important medical decisions for oneself and the like. Not about having one high standard for male academic papers and a much lower standard for women because woman can't hold to that standard, which struck me as fundamentally condescending and creepy. The Professor explained to me that I was fundamentally wrong. I continue to beg to differ and refused to believe that feminism means that women are less intelligent and incapable of logic. For the record, my respected female history adviser agreed with me on that one, what with her having spent over forty years competing with male academics successfully on their own terms. Just saying.

Anyway, criticizing art of any type or academic papers and the like is a way of saying, I think you are good enough to deserve real thought and attention to your work. It's a compliment to say in effect, You made me have all these complex thoughts and I spent hours, possibly days thinking about this thing you made.

* I've started Drift, and it's very well written, even with my high expectations of Rachel Maddow. It has to go back to the Library really soon, so I my not have anything intelligent to say until the next time around. Let me just say, 1. don't skip the intro as it does a beautiful job of using the particular to illustrate the general, and 2. This is a whole other side of Vietnam War analysis that even the excellent course I took in college only half touched.

* re: Game of Thrones. I do not like them robbing Arya of strength and agency as well as her experience of growing into leadership in the TV version. I pick at it like a scab.

* The Wire S:5: I love the way they build parallels into the structure. Things like Narese advising Clay Davis to do the time and people will look after him when he gets out and Marlo's lawyer telling him to get someone with no warrants to take the charge when we have all that history of people who were and were taken care of when they took the charge in the Barksdale organization. The politicians are another gang just like the gangs are just another business. Clever. I' love things like the season two port investigation survivor screaming at Krawcheck at the ribbon cutting scenes. Deep structure and continuity, details mattering. I love that they trusted their audience to get it.

* Is it just me, or was tonight's Lost Girl the Hunger games episode? Also, how stupid do you have to be not to take and interest in/manipulate the ah election so as to get someone cool in charge? Also? Threatening to rape your ex is creepy, not romantic.

* I hope Struck by Lightening makes it here. I have my fingers crossed for one of the Pickford branches.

* Re: Herman Cain on the Daily Show: I can never tell if Mr. Cain is deadly serious or having us all on.

* Re: tumblr, I like being able to see all the posts from various people on one page, but I'm finding the interface annoying and clunky.

* rm found, O.o http://laughingacademy.tumblr.com/post/21663831493/kellysue-best-thing-ever-best-thing-ever

* Deco Cake: http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2012/4/22/sunday-sweets-art-deco.html

* O.o http://lettersfromtitan.tumblr.com/post/21632332849/once-again-angela-merkel-covered-in-parrots

* Is it just me, or is Samuel L. Jackson dating Siri in that commercial?

* Snerk: http://xkcd-rss.livejournal.com/263562.html

(no subject)

* The Syrian government continues to bomb civilians in a number of cities. They halted the bombing of Duma during the inspection yesterday, they started back up as soon as they were gone.

* Sudan, despite South Sudan withdrawing from the disputed oil field is continuing to war on South Sudan. Up until recently Sudan has been the agrssor in the conflict, but this latest round seems to be South Sudan's fault.

* More on Republicans and the anti-woman agenda and attempts to lie about their records: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/

( Embed: )

* Zimmerman is out on bond. The Sanford city Commission refused the police chief's resignation despite last month's vote of no confidence and having asked him to step down. The severance for the resignation would cost less than the investigation and forcing him out. O.o

* The Pennsylvania primary later today is a lot less funny without santorum.

* I think Mr. Colbert has taken the best approach to the puffed up dog controversy in the presidential election: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/413073/april-23-2012/mitt-romney-s-picnic-gaffe

( Embed: )

* Hector decided I didn't need sleep today. He was wrong, but there was no convincing him. I did make it to the Doctor and to three out of four errands. (Forgot to get my meds, damnit) To my horror, my Doctor is resigning. She was kind and trans friendly and just generally a delight, but she has family stuff. I'm going back to the cranky, mood swingy Doctor who I know will prescribe my hormones, though she may be randomly nasty about it. Sigh. Her nurse is heartbroken of course, and I'm worried what will happen to his schedule. He has a wife and kids. Switching Doctor's means breaking in a new nurse and I like this one, damnit. Anyway, I took the cats out for 45 minutes today as the weather was brilliant, but was extra strict due to the rat situation. Don't worry, they did not make contact with any wildlife, alive or dead.

* I found black mold around my bedroom window today. Shit.

* I'm also nearly out of the merely disgusting cough syrup and moving onto the one so gross I can barely keep it down stuff. At least it actually is suppressing my cough, but I'd way much rather have the cough and antihistamines in pill form.

* Rm said this on tumblr recently: "To be critical in a review is, in the tradition I come from, an act of respect and love." That's my tradition too. It used to drive Skye nuts. It took a whole lot of communication and processing to get across that it's part of how i enjoy art, and a real compliment. It's how I got i trouble m last undergraduate year (along with Mitch, Xavier, and Jason V) because we were training to be historians and we thought that piinting out big flaws in the thesis before the twenty page paper got written was saving the other person a lot of time and effort and doing them the compliment of assuming they were grown ups able to handle criticism. It turned out that we were instead seen as "imposing patriarchal ideas of evidence and logic and therefore male chauvinist pigs." I still stand by my points. Here are the ones I got in the most trouble for: 1. You can call spears and swords phallic objects, but you can't call them all swords. 2. Two fictional retellings based on Lysistrata do not prove anything one way or another about the real life status of ordinary women in the Middle Ages. 3. The thesis that "Christianity is the only reason for a ransom system as it's an exclusively Christian idea as pagans wouldn't be so merciful" is pretty well disproved by the existence of the Iliad. I was also of the opinion that feminism is and should be about things like equal pay, equal status under the law, and equal rights to make important medical decisions for oneself and the like. Not about having one high standard for male academic papers and a much lower standard for women because woman can't hold to that standard, which struck me as fundamentally condescending and creepy. The Professor explained to me that I was fundamentally wrong. I continue to beg to differ and refused to believe that feminism means that women are less intelligent and incapable of logic. For the record, my respected female history adviser agreed with me on that one, what with her having spent over forty years competing with male academics successfully on their own terms. Just saying.

Anyway, criticizing art of any type or academic papers and the like is a way of saying, I think you are good enough to deserve real thought and attention to your work. It's a compliment to say in effect, You made me have all these complex thoughts and I spent hours, possibly days thinking about this thing you made.

* I've started Drift, and it's very well written, even with my high expectations of Rachel Maddow. It has to go back to the Library really soon, so I my not have anything intelligent to say until the next time around. Let me just say, 1. don't skip the intro as it does a beautiful job of using the particular to illustrate the general, and 2. This is a whole other side of Vietnam War analysis that even the excellent course I took in college only half touched.

* re: Game of Thrones. I do not like them robbing Arya of strength and agency as well as her experience of growing into leadership in the TV version. I pick at it like a scab.

* The Wire S:5: I love the way they build parallels into the structure. Things like Narese advising Clay Davis to do the time and people will look after him when he gets out and Marlo's lawyer telling him to get someone with no warrants to take the charge when we have all that history of people who were and were taken care of when they took the charge in the Barksdale organization. The politicians are another gang just like the gangs are just another business. Clever. I' love things like the season two port investigation survivor screaming at Krawcheck at the ribbon cutting scenes. Deep structure and continuity, details mattering. I love that they trusted their audience to get it.

* Is it just me, or was tonight's Lost Girl the Hunger games episode? Also, how stupid do you have to be not to take and interest in/manipulate the ah election so as to get someone cool in charge? Also? Threatening to rape your ex is creepy, not romantic.

* I hope Struck by Lightening makes it here. I have my fingers crossed for one of the Pickford branches.

* Re: Herman Cain on the Daily Show: I can never tell if Mr. Cain is deadly serious or having us all on.

* Re: tumblr, I like being able to see all the posts from various people on one page, but I'm finding the interface annoying and clunky.

* rm found, O.o http://laughingacademy.tumblr.com/post/21663831493/kellysue-best-thing-ever-best-thing-ever

* Deco Cake: http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2012/4/22/sunday-sweets-art-deco.html

* O.o http://lettersfromtitan.tumblr.com/post/21632332849/once-again-angela-merkel-covered-in-parrots

* Is it just me, or is Samuel L. Jackson dating Siri in that commercial?

* Snerk: http://xkcd-rss.livejournal.com/263562.html